Tim Blair has added a slew of updates to try to bolster his case against the accuracy of the British Crime survey.
The most interesting things about these updates is the way he introduces his sources:
Ex-Labour councillor and academic Dr David Green:
Barrister Rehman Chishti quits Labour:
Now, if one of these guys was an expert criminologist, mentioning it would strengthen Blair's case, but why mention their associations with Labour? The answer seems clear. It's all about politics to Blair. He thinks that people decide on whether police numbers or crime survey numbers based on which side of politics they support rather than which is more accurate. If Labour supporters are saying that the crime survey numbers don't give the right picture, then the case must be overwhelming.
Of course, Blair's descriptions of Green and Chishti are more than a little misleading. Green stopped being a Labour councilor in 1981 and stopped being an academic in 1983. For the last twenty years he has been Director of the right-wing think tank IEA's Health and Welfare Unit. In 2000 this unit was rebadged as the "non-partisan" Civitas think tank. Which in its "non-partisan" way is opposed to political correctness, multiculturalism, immigration, state schools etc etc. And a better description of Chishti would be "advisor to Conservative Party chairman Francis Maude MP".
But Blair's final update takes the cake:
UPDATE V. Related claims from Gateway Pundit: "Despite the headlines yesterday, violent crime in the US remains below levels in the 70's 80's and 90's and below that of Europe, Canada and Australia."
You see, crime increases in the US need to be explained away, so what does Gateway Pundit use? You guessed it, those unreliable crime surveys are suddenly reliable again when there is a right-wing government in power. And the whole point of his original post was derived by ignoring all crimes except homicide. Don't hold your breath waiting for Blair to mention that homicide in the US is several times the rate in Canada, Australia and western Europe.
Blair reveals his attitude towards science in his reaction to this interesting story on the work of glaciologists in Greenland who have found that melting has increased dramatically in the past decade. What does Blair think of that? Boooring. The only thing that he even noticed about the article was the food the glaciologists ate.
Speaking of boring, Blair filled his latest column with weather reports. Thirteen reports like this one:
"Horsham experienced its coldest recorded temperature on Tuesday." -- The Wimmera Mail Times, June 2
Did he lose a bet or something?
He must have missed the report for my neck of the woods.
Record heat, about 25 deg F. above average for that day.
He was a hero to the blogosphere
Across this wide brown land
Tim Lambert of Scienceblogs.com
With his clue stick in his hand
The mighty throbbing clue stick!
Tim gripped it like a lance
And stroked and loved and cared for it
He housed it in his pants
Then the clue stick ceased to function
Its mojo all was spent
Tim whipped it out and waved it 'round
But what had been had ... went
Tim needed inspiration
It came one day in class
"Hey, fatso!" yelled a student
"Shove your clue stick up your arse!"
Lambert took him literally
(Which is the Lambert way)
And that's why Tim is smiling
At top left of screen today
Oh dear, I think the humane thing to do would be to delete that before he sobers up.
A very clever pome from little rhyming land hand,lance pants,spent went, class arse,way today .That pome reveals many of little timmie's obsessioms : impotence , exposing oneself ,anal probing , calling people fat and the interesting connection between intellectual effort and sexual humiliation. There is also an element of confusion in it as it's written by a tim about a Tim.
Proof positive he is not the antipodean PJ O'Rourke.